A Noble Woman: The Life-Story of Edith Cavell

by Ernest Protheroe

The Morning Post.

'Often as in the course of the past fifteen months we have been astounded by the relapses into elemental barbarism which our adversaries have exhibited, perhaps there is no case that shows up so much as this the ghastly descent of the German character into primitive brutality. When it is admitted that the charge was proved true, by the accused's confessions, and that it was a charge that, according to the military code in force at Brussels, might be visited with the penalty of death, all is said that can be said for the real criminals. A proclamation of martial law usually invests the military authority with the power of inflicting the severest penalties over a wide range of offences. This does not mean that that authority is to deal in nothing but death sentences. But it is quite useless to look for any colourable pretext for German remorselessness in this matter. They were resolved from the first to commit this deed of cruelty, but they were feverishly anxious that it should be kept secret until beyond recall. From the moment that the American Legation was known to have got news of Miss Cavell's arrest and to be concerned in seeing that she was properly defended, the German local Government begins to adopt every means for throwing dust in the eyes of the United States representatives. Surely such a story has never been presented to the modern world as is here unfolded.

'All who have given attention to Napoleonic literature must have recollections of prints of the death of the Duc D'Enghien—the firing party under the glare of the torches, the prisoner standing on the brink of his newly dug grave. In Napoleon's lifetime, and for many years after, nothing hurt his personal reputation more than this summary, furtive execution in the dead of night that seemed to proclaim its own blood-guiltiness. But the great Frenchman acted in this matter with the motives and in the manner of an Eastern Sultan. He saw a man whom, rightly or wrongly, he believed to be a danger to himself; he arrested him lawlessly on foreign soil, and struck him down lawlessly. But what is there in common between such an episode and the midnight execution of a defenceless woman who never meant harm to any human being, who only came within reach of the criminal law by her superior regard for the higher precepts of mercy and compassion?

'When we think of the scene in that Brussels jail we may well wonder that at this time of day it should be possible to get men to participate in such a deed. Is it that insufficient blood has been shed during this past year that men should hunger after one harmless life? Yet we should evidently make a great mistake to treat our heroic countrywoman's end as if a mere case for compassion.

'One cannot mourn beyond a certain point for such a death. Who could have dreamed a few years ago that English womanhood would be producing such a heroine—the counterpart and realization in actual life of the Antigone whom the tragedian's inspired imagination has held up to the world's admiration for so many centuries?'

The Daily Telegraph.

'We do not know whether any comment would be adequate in a case like this, or whether, indeed, all comment is not superfluous. We have had large experience of the brutality with which the enemy conducts his warfare, and especially the inhuman recklessness with which he pursues his vengeance against the civilian population of the countries which he invades. We venture to think, however, that in the case of a nurse, a woman whose life is dedicated to the alleviation of pain, cruelty of this kind, cruelty that presses against her the very extremity of martial law, is more diabolical even than all the other counts of a growing indictment. No other nation in Europe, we believe, would have put a nurse to death in circumstances of this kind. They would have made some allowance for her woman's tender heart, even though she had been guilty of an offence, and therefore deserved some punishment. Nothing, probably, can now brand with fouler infamy the German name, stained as it is by all the damning items in its past record, from Louvain and the Lusitania down to the murder of an English nurse.'

The Standard.

'Those who sorrow for the death of a good and brave Englishwoman who died for her country as truly and nobly as any soldier in the field must most warmly acknowledge the efforts made on her behalf by the Ministers of the United States and of Spain. Everything which could be done by gentlemen of kindly spirit and resolution to save her was done. We are once more under a debt of unbounded gratitude to those neutrals who have, from the first, striven to maintain some of the mitigations of the horrors of warfare which our enemy thrusts aside with contempt. They strained their diplomatic prerogatives to the utmost in the cause of mercy, and, if all their efforts were unavailing to combat the logical savagery of the German military mind, the fault was none of theirs. We must add also that, despite the horror at the outrage which they cannot conceal, the representatives of the United States who have reported are perfectly fair to the Germans. Although their own proposals for the defence of Miss Cavell were rejected, they do not deny that her trial was, in a sense, fair, and that the issue was in accordance with the evidence and the provisions of the German military code. The correspondence of Mr. Brand Whitlock with Mr. Page, and the documents he forwards, gain the greater cogency from their frank avowal of that fact. Murder by process of law is, of course, no rare thing. Judge Jeffreys was a murderer of that kind. But it has always aroused greater anger and contempt among men of right feeling than murder of any other kind, and those, we are sure, will be the feelings aroused throughout the world by the story of the murder of this noble woman, who, if she offended against the laws of her country's foes, could have been so easily rendered harmless by means far less severe. The vengeance of the strong upon the weak is the most abhorrent spectacle in the eyes of all right-minded people which can be exhibited.

'It would be easy to pour forth vials of denunciation on the heads of the Germans for this act. But it is utterly useless to do so, and, if useless, then weak. A homely proverb says that you can expect nothing from a pig but a grunt, and we know by this time what to expect from our present enemy. Their standard of justice, of manliness, of chivalry, is altogether diverse from ours, and atrocities such as this done on Miss Cavell must simply confirm us in our determination that it is our standard and not theirs which is going to prevail in the world of the future. As one outrage follows another the conviction grows the stronger that the world on the Prussian model would be an intolerable place, and that every man who loves freedom, mercy, and justice had better die than live to see it so. The correspondence must be read in full. We shall not attempt to discuss it in detail. In due course, as we most fully believe, the blood of all those who have perished to slake the brutal German thirst for dominion will be required at the hands of the guilty. On the other hand, the name of Edith Cavell is henceforth enshrined among the patriots and martyrs who have died nobly for the honour of the Empire. May her relatives and friends find comfort in that thought!'

The Daily Mail.

'The story of Miss Cavell's arrest, trial, and martyrdom is one of those sublime tragedies which make the deepest appeal to the heart of man. The facts cover the enemy with eternal infamy. The Germans did to death a woman whose whole life had been dedicated to the service of suffering man, for a breach of a barbarous law which they themselves had imposed. All efforts to save her were in vain. The German authorities tricked and attempted to deceive the United States Minister at Brussels, who made the most persistent exertions in her behalf. They evidently hurried on the execution in order that no chance might baulk them of their prey. This is a deed which in its horror and wicked purposelessness stuns the world and cries to heaven for vengeance.

'Miss Cavell neither grieved nor faltered when she knew her fate. She was happy, she said, to die for her country; and a life which had been generously devoted to a noble work was crowned by an heroic death. It is difficult to say what inspiration a nation does not draw from such an example as hers, which lifts up even the meanest and most selfish heart to new heights of unselfish love and devotion. "To weep would do her wrong." Her life and death are beautiful as those of the saints of old, and will move mankind like immortal music or song. In the truest sense she may be said to have died happy. Her country will never forget her. Her memory will brace our troops in the hour of battle, and when the grey forms close in the North Sea it will be there. Those who die thus have won immortality.'

The Daily Chronicle.

'In a War which numbers its casualties by millions, and which has witnessed holocausts of atrocity like the sinking of the Lusitania and the sack of Louvain, the murder of a single lady may seem a small episode. But the enormity of a crime is not always measured by the number of its victims. Here was a lady of education who had devoted her life to the relief of human suffering. The head of a great nursing institute, she had helped to train hundreds of nurses, including Germans. When the War broke out she devoted her whole strength to the care of the wounded, and had lavished her personal attention on wounded German soldiers. Latterly she had assisted certain British, French, and Belgian soldiers to escape to England across the Dutch frontier. Charged with this military offence, she admitted it with complete candour; indeed, she seems to have been the principal witness against herself. One may safely affirm that, having regard to her transparently humanitarian motives and all the circumstances of the case, no Government in the world but the German would have inflicted the death penalty on such a culprit. They not merely inflicted it, but compassed its infliction with a mixture of duplicity and brutality that must make every decent human being's gorge rise. Of Miss Cavell herself no one will dispute that if any death in this War has been heroic, hers was; one cannot say less, and no one could say more. The sense of the whole civilized world can be left to judge between this helpless woman and her murderers.'